The invention relates to a bee hive assembly of the type comprising one or more stackable box-like hive elements adapted to receive comb frames and each comprising four sides, a roof element for said one or more hive elements, and a base element for supporting said one or more hive elements and having a bee entrance opening.
As is well known, a colony of bees lives in four phases: the winter period, the propagation, the swarming and the honey (nectar) collecting. Preferably, the climatic circumstances in the bee hive should be adapted to these different phases which requires special provisions. The conventional bee hive has closed walls of wood or another suitable material whereby the hive forms a dark and humid interior space which offers insufficient possibilities to regulate and adapt the habitat inside the hive from the outside. This means that this adaptation must be brought about by the activities of the bees themselves which requires much energy from the bees at the cost of the honey production and the lives of many bees. Furthermore fewer bees are available to take care of the brood, as a consequence of which the queen produces less eggs. It has been suggested to provide one or more of the walls of the hive with a glass panel so that light can penetrate into the hive. It has been shown that such daylight receiving hives have certain advantages, such as the brood forming being stimulated, starting earlier in the spring and being prolonged in the fall, the bees each day working at least two hours longer, the eyesight of the young bees developing better and quicker, and the bees generally being more hardy and producing good queens. Furthermore, the light checks the development of rot, decease and mold in the hive. However, a light-receiving bee hive requires special provisions to prevent undesirable temperature fluctuations in its interior. As a general rule it can be said that in order to maintain the proper living conditions in a bee hive an equable temperature of sufficient level should exist without requiring the bees themselves to produce much heat to maintain such temperature. Also the relative humidity of the air in the hive should be as low as possible which means that a proper but draught-free ventilation should be provided for the removal of the water vapour (and carbon dioxide) developed inside the hive, without this ventilation leading to excessive heat losses. It is further of great importance that the bees have always sufficient drinking water available inside the hive so that they are not forced to collect water from outside. Such water collecting requires extra energy from the bees and the water collecting bees are especially susceptible to heat loss caused by evaporation of the water they carry along.